VEHO-TECHNOLOGIES
ABOUT VEHO-TECHNOLOGIES
Package Delivery, Re-invented. Veho Technologies is a crowdsourcing technology platform that enables anyone in their own car to become a package delivery driver (often dubbed “the Uber for last mile delivery”). Veho is a disruptor in the $100 billion package delivery industry, which has not seen significant innovation in the past 30 years. Since launching in 2016, Veho drivers have delivered over 10,000 packages in the Northeast US using the Veho app. The company is also developing an AI-based dispatch management software that allows it to scale its delivery operation while removing much of the operational friction from the process. Veho is the grand prize winner of the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition (2017) and is backed by some of the top executives in the industry, including Tom Schmitt – the former CEO of FedEx Supply Chain, and several former UPS executives
ABOUT ITAMAR ZUR
The founder and CEO of Veho Technologies. Prior to founding Veho, Itamar served as the chief marketing officer of Startup Camel, served as a brand manager at Proctor and Gamble Israel, where he led the company’s marketing efforts in the under-developed Jewish Ultra Orthodox Segment and in the IDF, completed his legal internship with Herzog, Fox and Ne’eman – Israel’s largest law firm. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School (MBA, first-year honors), and holds a law degree (LLB) with distinction from Tel Aviv University. He is a huge NBA fan and rooting for the Boston Celtics.
CAMELTARY (Camel Commentary)
The Not-Uber For Deliveries.
Itamar Zur knows a thing or two about startups. However, the self-described ‘late-bloomer’ attended Harvard Business School – the antithesis of entrepreneurship – before entering the grind of startups and building his own company. In fact, one of the first ventures he entered into before even starting school was the founding of this podcast itself.
Today, he runs Veho Technologies, a platform for anyone with their own car to deliver packages. Similar to a certain ride-share company, customers can track and get an accurate timeframe of when their packages will arrive at their home, office, or even the cafe down the street.
“I don’t like using other companies to describe it, but the concept is very similar,” Zur confesses. “However, it’s not on-demand. This is a planned system.”
The e-commerce industry is booming. Today, people expect their purchases to arrive at their chosen destination only hours after the orders have been placed. The package delivery industry on its own totals $85 billion, Zur simply noticed a gap in an unchanged market and sought to make it better.
“Try finding a problem that exists in a space that isn’t going anywhere – like trucking,” he advises. Zur doesn’t quite believe in the concept of ‘insider knowledge’ as a route to entrepreneurship. For him, it’s simply spotting the problem and finding a solution. Today, Veho Technologies is cheaper and is a better customer experience – totally innovating the space.
In the United States, there are only two main competitors for his product – FedEx and UPS. Even then, Zur sees them more as neighbours than competitors. “We try to work with the elephants [competitors], not against them.”
Veho Technologies (the name is taken from ‘to carry’ in Latin) has gained 400k in funding, solely through Angel Checks due to choosing not go with Venture Capitals. This offered them the chance to have the cash without relying too much on growth right away. Now the product is built, the company is seeking a seed round of $2 million.
In this ever-changing world, our patience and tolerance is shortening to match the speed in which we expect immediate results. The trucking industry has not innovated at the same pace of its technological counterpart. Looking for immediate responses can cause problems, especially in business.
“We’re not here for the short-term, we’re here for the long-term,” he says. Customers may not be thinking as ambitiously as Veho. Pretty soon, they’ll expect them to be here in 30 minutes or less.